Alpha Said in Talks to Sell Seoul Tower for $885M and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

Singapore’s Alpha Investment Partners leads our collection of Asia real estate news as the private fund management division of Keppel Corp shops a Seoul office tower at a reported $885 million price tag. Also getting some ink is the return of liquidity to China’s property market and a combined coworking-hotel brand from Singapore expanding into Australia. Read on for all these stories and more.

Singapore-based Alpha Investment Partners is in negotiations with Hana Financial Investment Co. Ltd. to sell a landmark office building across Seoul railway station, for which the South Korean company suggested close to 1 trillion won ($885 million).

Alpha Investment, a real estate fund manager, put Seoul Square building up for sale after it secured WeWork, a US shared office provider, as a new tenant for a 20-year lease earlier this year, according to investment banking sources last week. Read more>>

China almost quadrupled the value of fixed-asset investment projects approved in July from the previous month as Beijing looks to accelerate infrastructure spending to stabilize the cooling economy.

China gave the green light to 17 fixed-asset investment projects in July, worth a combined 77.69 billion yuan ($11.24 billion), Zhao Chenxin, an official at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told reporters on Thursday. Read more>>

China has invested 990 billion yuan ($143.63 billion) for a massive urban redevelopment project in the first seven months of 2018, the housing ministry said on Thursday.

China’s central bank has injected hundreds of billions of dollars into such shantytown redevelopment projects (SRP) through the Pledged Supplementary Lending (PSL) programme, which has been largely used for cash compensation to residents whose homes are demolished. Read more>>

Singapore-based Next Story Group is launching the first Australian location of its combined co-working and hotel brand Kafnu in Sydney’s Alexandria as early as October 2018, it was announced on Friday.

While co-working operators TwoSpace has set up in pre-existing spaces in Ovolo Hotels’ and TFE Hotels’ properties, Kafnu would be one of the first businesses in the country to combine accommodation and co-working under one roof from scratch, as well as managing the two together. Read more>>

Some buyers are so edgy about the Hong Kong property market that they are pulling out of deals, despite losing big deposits.

A buyer who agreed to buy a unit at Sun Hung Kai Properties’ St Martin II two weeks ago cancelled the purchase on Thursday. The U-turn on the HK$7.25 million studio unit in Tai Po in the New Territories meant the buyer had to forfeit the 5 per cent deposit – about HK$362,700 (US$46,200). Read more>>

THE prospect of 40 million foreign tourists coming to Thailand in 2019 is proving too big a draw to ignore for boutique US hotel company Standard International.

Better known for its trendy hotels in locations such as Miami Beach and New York, Standard International plans to open hotels in four locations in Thailand by 2021 worth about US$150 million, its chief executive officer Amar Lalvani said. Read more>>